Thoughts on Reading 4 and Vibe Coding

On a complete converse from the last pair of pieces. The reading we have introducing vibe coding is actually why I an not an AI dooms-dayer to the core. I have been actively and extensively using AI since I could essentially beta test GPT. In more recent times I have been using LLMs (and much of this will replicate into my AI essay for the end of this month) for doing extensive coding work. Some of it just for fun, most of it to build a concentrated community media server and archive for myself and my music scene friend. All of this code arguably fit under the umbrella of vibe coding. I have enough coding background that I am capable of auditing a lot of the work that these models do, which is very important for the scope of the projects, but a lot of it is just “I have an idea, how can we execute”.

The ability for this technology to become a tool of fracturing and power concentration I feel like it can just as much do the opposite: build and encourage community and creation. I could not craft an extensive media server to replace Netflix and Spotify and be functionally equal, and in some ways arguably better, without the use of these tools. With things like Ollama and Stable Diffusion, we can even sandbox these tools away from the big 5, granted they aren’t as capable as a Claude Pro account, but we still have the tools to develop like we have personal development teams and that is extremely powerful. The possibility of a proliferation of viable alternatives to mainstream platforms and applications  are more available than they have ever been (just look at the recent boom of really amazing and bizarre audio plugins, its like a digital version of the noise table days in the early 2000s), it really comes down to whether we intend to take advantage of that or not. We can build too, we can build cooler, and we can build more.

Also, even if not for the sake of revolutionary acts, like the article itself implies, its just fun. So, why not?